The Gawronsky Letter.

One of my duties at The New Job is to file documents related to our donors. 9 times out of 10, they look the same. Copy of a check that someone made to us and our "Thank You" letter to them. That's it. Sometimes the donors write a short note or letter to go with the check. But there's usually little more than that.

Today, however, I ran into a beautiful, screaming wreckage of a letter. I've read it two or three times now. There's something crazy and pushy and terribly ill-informed about it. Whenever someone runs blazing in the exact wrong direction, with their eyes closed, you just know that it's going to end badly. And yet, I can't look away.

Here, reprinted for your amusement, typos and all, is a recreation of "The Gawronsky Letter".

12-19-2006

Mr. & Mrs. Larry Gawronsky
Their Home Address.
Battle Creek, MI Zip Code

My WorkPlace.
P.O. Box SomethingOrOther
New York, NY. Zip Code
Research & Testing Dept.

To Whom It May Concern,

It has come to our attention that your establishment condones & continues to do extensive testing on animals. This is against one of our most basic principles for contributing to many worthy causes. We must tell you that for this reason we are suspending all contributions until this practice has been eliminated completely.

Our reasoning is that the reactions that animals DO NOT, We reiterate, DO NOT even come close to or give he results that would appear or happen to a human being. Yes some of the animals my be close, but they are not human, They are either totally different or just short of our DNA and RNA. This is a proven fact for the last 30 years.

We implore you to cease and desist this practice before we resume our support. We also must demand that public announcement over all types of media for 48 hrs. The television announcements must be made ever hr. for 48 hrs so that we will know that the change has taken place. One solution to replace animals is to ASK criminals serving a life sentence to to volunteer for this testing with the promise of parole when the testing is done. They or their families should also be handsomely compensated should they be deformed, brain damaged, terminally ill, died as a result of the testing. They have nothing to loose and everything to gain.

With Great Determination

Larry Gawronsky (in giant swirling cursive signature)
Barbara E Gawronsky (nee Goldfarb) (in neat, tidy cursive)

Larry & Barbara Gawronsky

PS We ask that you forward this letter to the UNIVERSITY THAT WE RAISE MONEY FOR. Thank you.

Well, where to start, actually.

First off, the typos and sentence structure issues are all there. This is someone with more outrage, than formal writing training. Also, don't they know that bolded, size 14 fonts are meant to be read in a screaming voice? Maybe, they meant to scream.

Second, we don't have a "Research & Testing Dept." We have a "mail room". And a "bathroom". And a "conference room". But no "R&T Dept." And wouldn't that be an "R&D Dept" anyways?
Activists, learn from this. Know who you are writing and if they're relevant to the social change that you want to incite.

Third, Animal Testing is...well...sort of essential to scientific research. Whether you're launching chimps into space or trying a new heart medicine on a beagle, there are actual benefits to this research. The risks are too great to risk human life on them. For more info on this, check out this section of the wikipedia. (And the whole "Test on Criminals" theory doesn't account for A.) the wrongfully imprisoned, B.) the genuinely anti-societies that are going to sign up for this, to get their sentences shortened and C.) the inherent problems of releasing criminals back into society, just because they played guinea pig for science. Stupid, stupid, stupid idea there.)

I think that these people aren't Anti-Animal Testing. I think that they're secretly Anti-Animal Cruelty. And who wouldn't be. Of course, we don't want animals to needlessly suffer. (And there are many, many examples of lab agents mis-treating animals.) I think that tighter monitoring of Animal Testing Standards is the solution. That way, science gets the test subjects that it needs and the animals that DO die aren't tortured by these experiments.

I went back and looked up The Gawronsky's donor history. Those two jerks made a single cash donation of $25 back in 1996!

Look, for $25 you don't get to radically alter how medicine is researched at our school, make crazy ass demands and demand that we appear on television for 48 hours, just to make sure that YOU know that we made the change. That's fucking Crazytown. What channel or news channel is going to make hourly announcements about this?
Can't we just fucking call you and tell you that we conceeded to your Crazy-Ass Demands?

There was no other notation made about the letter in their account. My predecessor must've read it, thought, "What a bunch of loons" and dropped the letter on the "To Be Filed" pile, which is where I found it. They didn't even bother to change the acct.

So, somewhere out in Battle Creek, MI, two lone rebels are waging a private war against Animal Testing, demanding change, one 25 dollar donation at a time.